The field of the invention is financial instruments, in particular the field of credit and debit cards.
There has always existed a need for sending money to a third party expeditiously. Wire transfer services such as Western Union(copyright) have long existed to facilitate the rapid transfer of funds to another party in the event of an emergency. Nonetheless, the recipient cannot obtain the cash payment unless they visit one of the wire transfer agents of the wire transfer service. There may not be an agent at the locale of the recipient, the agent may not be conveniently located, or the agent may not be open for business at that time.
Western Union(copyright), for example, claims it has over 80,000 agents worldwide where funds could be wired (figure quoted on www.westernunion.com, August 2000). However, with the explosion of the Internet globally in recent years, it has become a relatively simple process to obtain Internet access at any locale. Undoubtedly there are orders of magnitude more places where an intended recipient of funds can go to gain Internet access than there are wire transfer agents.
Recently, many Internet Payment Companies (xe2x80x9cIPCsxe2x80x9d) such as Paypal.com or CCNow.com were established to take advantage of the convenience and penetration of the Internet to facilitate the transfer of funds. Using these services, it is possible to transfer funds from one party""s credit card account to a recipient""s account with the IPC. However, before he can use the funds the recipient has to first transfer it from his IPC account to his existing credit card or bank account. In many cases it can take a few business days for the transfer to be completed and the funds to become available.
Further, it is desirable in many situations such as when the recipient is traveling, or when he wants to set a fixed budget that the transferred funds isn""t given in the form of cash. In situations such as these, the recipient may be the original credit card holder himself. Although traveler""s checks have long been available to provide security against thieves and pickpockets, they are well-known to be cumbersome to use and not welcomed by many merchants. Further, it can be difficult to obtain a refund when the traveler""s checks are lost or stolen if records on how much was cashed wasn""t kept.
A need exists for a system to facilitate the transfer of funds which addresses the deficiencies of conventional methods in availability, convenience and security.